Of Love And Laboratories
by pleasing-phoebe
Summary: Zach finds an unlikely romance. But can he hold it together long enough to keep her?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1.

The Jeffersonian Museum was quiet and still. Empty, one could hardly believe just a few short hours ago there had been a cadaver on the metal slab with its bloated insides spilling over the clean, shining surface, reeking of death. A small, dark-haired man bustled into the room humming to himself and thinking hard. He paused his humming and spoke aloud.

"So if the water was full of squid then he must have drowned in salt water… so why was the body dredged out of fresh water?" Then, it seemed to hit him in a blinding flash. "Of course!" He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialled a number.

"Dr Brennan? It's Zack."

"Good work, Zack!" Temperance Brennan grinned at Zack and her partner, Seeley Booth slapped him on the back so hard Zack nearly fell into the pile of decomposing flesh.

"Thanks, Dr Brennan," Zack murmured, his cheeks flushed with success. "It all made sense once I remembered the squid. You see, we thought he had been eating the squid, but then I saw the exact way the digestion was affected and bingo."

"The salt traces we found weren't sweat; they were salt water particles embedded in the eroding pieces of bone," Brennan explained to a confused Booth.

"Bones, I don't really know what you just said. But it sounded good, and good old Zack here has solved his very own case! I think he deserves a drink for that, don't you?"

"It's not sanitary to drink in here, Agent Booth," said Zack, and Booth rolled his eyes.

"No Zack, we're taking you out of here. You kinda need a life outside of the lab."

"But… why?"

"Just shut up and get outta here, okay kiddo?" Booth placed a hand on Zack's shoulder and started steering him towards the door, accompanied by Brennan. As they departed, Booth said,

"What were you still doing here anyway? You guys are supposed finish at one on a Saturday if you're working, and it's three now."

"Oh, I was doing an analysis on an old piece of bone. You see, there's a pattern I read about in an anthropology journal which says that if you take the diameter of the bone laceration and cross-multiply that with the…"

"Yeah, I'm not interested."

In the bar, the three sat at a table with their drinks; Brennan with her glass of wine, Booth with his bottle of Bud and Zack with his cranberry juice.

"How d'you drink that crap, Zack? Jeez, as if you weren't around sticky red stuff enough at work… Have you never heard of switching off?"

"Yes. I just don't." Booth looked at Brennan and sipped his beer.

"I give up." Brennan smiled gently at Zack and played with the stem of her wine glass.

"Zack just doesn't work the way you do, Booth. He's like me; he gets so immersed in his work that he thinks if he takes his mind off of it he won't function properly. Anyway, he's a genius, and he didn't get this way by taking days off."

"I thought this was a celebratory drink, not a game of taunt Zack."

"Yeah Bones, leave the prodigy alone." Although his friends were only playing, Zack took it to heart, and pushed his chair back roughly.

"I'm going home now." He stood up and left the restaurant, fumbling for his keys as he ambled along the sidewalk, and promptly walked into someone.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry!" Zack apologised as he tried to pick up the items rolling around on the floor. A cell phone, a mirror, a hairbrush, a purse, an iPod, lip gloss…

"No worries, I wasn't looking where I was going. Too busy staring into my purse and decided lack of funds," said the girl, and as Zack handed her the contents of her handbag back, he stuttered. She looked to be about twenty two, and was a little shorter than him, with dark blonde shoulder length hair styled in layered waves. She had a pair of bright green eyes and a mouth with plump, glossed lips. Smiling awkwardly under his all too obvious scrutiny, she pushed her hair back behind her ear and the piercings in her ears and nose sparkled in the streetlight's garish light. A flash of ink on her wrist caught his attention briefly, and her rings clicked quietly as she tucked the hair back. She moved her feet in awkwardly, and her posture slipped into a slouch.

"I beg your pardon, it's rude of me to stare," Zack managed to say when he found his tongue again. "But you're very beautiful."

"Thanks, that's sweet," smiled the girl. "I don't usually get a guy who's that open with me." Her voice had a southern lilt, perhaps Creole.

"It's okay, I'm just socially inept." Now it was Zack's turn to smile awkwardly as the blonde put her head to the side, puzzled.

"Are you kidding or are you being serious?"

"Serious. Deadly so."

"Oh right… well, thanks for helping me anyway. I should really get going, I'm late for work and I still have about eight blocks to walk."

"Would you like a lift? I have a car." Zack pointed to it, and she smiled slightly.

"That's kind of you, but you don't have to."

"I'd like to. By way of an apology?" The girl graciously accepted, and got into the car.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2.

They sat in the car in silence as Zack drove, the peace shattered only by Zack's questions "This turning?" or the girl's replies: "No, a few blocks yet." Eventually, the girl pointed to a bar.

"This is me." Zack pulled into a space and turned the engine off.

"You work at Gianni's?"

"Yeah. You know it then?"

"Sort of. Some of my colleagues go here after work. You been working here long?"

"About two months." There was another silence, and then she looked at him. "Do you want to come in for a drink or something?"

"Umm…" Zack checked the clock on the dash. It read half past five. "I'll come in for one I guess."

Zack sat at the bar on his own, watching the girl serving customers. She really was very pretty, he had decided. She was slender without being skeletal or gaunt, which made a change from the women he usually encountered. She also had a pulse and skin; another rare quality in the women he dealt with. She was in simple waitressing clothes of a black top and skirt with a white apron tied around her waist, and she brought the food out in true Italian style; plates laid out impeccably on hands with long, splayed fingers adorned with silver rings. There was a ring on her engagement finger, he noted subconsciously, which she twisted when she was taking orders or just standing around. If she wasn't serving a customer, she stood behind the bar chatting to Zack or people who appeared to be regulars. He drained his third glass of cranberry juice, and she came back over to him all smiles.

"Care for another?"

"What time is it?"

"Got a curfew or something?" She grinned, and he smiled back.

"No, but I live at a friend's and I don't want to wake him or anything." He thought back to what Hodgins had said earlier on in the day: I'm having a meal with Angela tonight. Do not on any account interrupt us.

"Well it's half nine now. I'm sure he won't mind too much so long as you've got a key. Besides, I don't get off for a little while and I'm enjoying talking to you."

"I like talking to you too," he said with a small smile.

"Then it's settled. You're staying." And with that, she refilled his glass and walked away.

At half past eleven, she came out of the kitchen and undid her apron.

"I'm finished now, so I guess I'll see you some other time? I have a bus to catch."

"Well, I can drive you back to your place if you'd like. I don't mind."

"Are you sure? I'd feel so pushy… You already drove me all the way here."

"It's not out of my way," Zack lied. "I only live a little way from where my car was parked."

"Positive?"

"Yeah. Come on, I'll grab your coat." He picked the red coat off of its hook and waited for her as she got her things from the kitchen.

"Thanks," she said as she took her coat from him and put it on. He got a better look at the tattoo on her wrist; it was a little cluster of three stars.

"That's a pretty tattoo."

"Yeah, it was a spur of the moment thing from when I was younger. But between you and I, I still kinda like it." She smiled conspiratorially and buttoned up her coat. "Ready when you are."

When they got to her apartment, Zack turned to her and said,

"I've been incredibly rude."

"You have?"

"Yes. I've been talking to you all evening and I still haven't told you my name. I'm Zack."

"Oh God, that's rude of me too! I haven't told you mine either. I'm Mariella."

"It was lovely to meet you, Mariella."

"And you, Zack. I hope I bump into you again some time, hopefully not as embarrassingly as before though."

"I agree. I seem to remember I completely embarrassed myself by telling you I was socially inept."

"Don't sweat it. I'll see you around okay?" She kissed him on the cheek, and got out of the car. He watched her walk into her building, then drove off, wondering if he ever would see her again. And if he did, he hoped it wouldn't be on a slab.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3.

To his surprise, he was still thinking about Mariella on Wednesday with his gloved hands poking about a skeleton. Not the most romantic way of thinking about someone, he thought, but then again he wasn't dating her or anything. He'd only met her once. But those eyes had been so bright and full of life, and she'd been so funny and understanding of his idiotic mistakes. And then of course there was her looks…

"Zack, do you make a habit of standing there with your hands in a man's ribcage staring into space with a stupid smile on your face, or am I interrupting an important thought process?" Zack jumped as Booth walked in.

"I was just thinking."

"About how he died?"

"Umm… yes?"

"Oh good." Booth watched the young man get to work, and not for the first time he marvelled at Zack's superior intelligence as he told Booth what he'd found. How the hell could he tell which weapon was used to kill him by just looking at the bone? It was truly amazing… Then he said something which jolted Booth from his trance.

"Agent Booth? What happens if you like a girl?"

"Uh… well… I guess you know the ins and outs of sex right?"

"Yes. I don't mean physically, I mean… mentally."

"Well… When I like a girl, I can't stop thinking about her. She's always on my mind, every second of the day, and I can think of something to do with her in everything people say. Why do you ask?"

"Yesterday, after I left the restaurant, I met this girl. Mariella."

"Pretty name. How did you meet her?"

"By being a complete socially inept ape. After that, I don't deserve to be called Homo sapiens sapiens."

"Homo what now?"

"It's the name of our… never mind. But basically I walked right into her, made her drop everything she was carrying, stared at her for ages, told her I thought she was beautiful, then offered her a lift in my car and ended up taking her home."

"Wow, that's one way of meeting a girl. So you just took her home?"

"No. I spent a few hours with her whilst she was working, just chatting about things."

"Things like?"

"Things like the weather, current affairs, where we live… stuff really."

"Right, okay. I don't understand how all this fits in though."

"Well, since I dropped her off yesterday, I keep finding myself thinking about her. Like just now, when you walked in, I was thinking about something she said…" Zack smiled with a faraway look in his eyes, and Booth grinned at him.

"I do that when I like a girl as well."

"Do what?"

"Stare into space with an idiotic smile on my face."

"I was doing that?"

"Yeah. So, when are you going to call her?" Zack looked at him blankly. "You did get her number, didn't you?"

"N-no, not as such."

"Well look her up in the phone directory. What's her last name?"

"Erm…"

"You do know, right?"

"Yes. And by yes I mean… well… no."

"You really are an idiot, Zack. Do you not know the first thing about women?"

"As you so kindly remind me, I spend a lot of time working. I don't spend my evenings picking up women you know."

"Neither do I, I'm just very good at it."

"You're very self-assured. Did you know that drinking all that coffee could kill you?" Booth looked at the coffee cup he'd raised to his lips, and then set it down on a workstation.

"Okay, point taken. Let's see… What was her accent like?"

"Southern. Louisiana, maybe New Orleans?"

"That's good. So you know where she works?"

"Gianni's. I think you guys go there sometimes?"

"Yeah, occasionally. Is she the tall brunette one?"

"No, she's about my height and dark blonde." Booth snapped his fingers.

"I know who you're talking about! Mariella Couteau! I know her elder sister, Faye."

"That's great. Now I know her last name." Zack went back to analysing a bone, and Booth sighed.

"Aren't you gonna do something about it instead of staring at that guy's fibula?"

"It's his tibia actually. But good try."


End file.
